This disclosure relates to aircraft and aircraft systems, and in particular to an on-board aircraft dried inert gas generation system.
It is recognized that fuel vapors within fuel tanks become combustible in the presence of oxygen. An inerting system decreases the probability of combustion of flammable materials stored in a fuel tank by maintaining a chemically non-reactive or inert gas, such as oxygen-depleted air, in the fuel tank vapor space also known as ullage. As used herein, the term “inert” means non-combustible. Three elements are required to initiate and sustain combustion: an ignition source (e.g., heat), fuel, and oxygen. Combustion may be prevented by reducing any one of these three elements. If the presence of an ignition source cannot be prevented within a fuel tank, then the tank may be made inert by: 1) reducing the oxygen concentration, 2) reducing the fuel concentration of the ullage to below the lower explosive limit (LEL), or 3) increasing the fuel concentration to above the upper explosive limit (UEL). Many systems reduce the risk of combustion by reducing the oxygen concentration by introducing an inert gas such as oxygen-depleted air (ODA) to the ullage, thereby displacing oxygen with a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen at target thresholds for avoiding explosion or combustion.
It is known in the art to equip aircraft with onboard inert gas systems, which supply oxygen-depleted air to the vapor space (i.e., ullage) within the fuel tank. The oxygen-depleted air has a substantially reduced oxygen content that reduces or eliminates combustible conditions within the fuel tank. Onboard inert gas systems typically use membrane-based gas separators. Such separators contain a membrane that is permeable to oxygen molecules, but relatively impermeable to nitrogen molecules. A pressure differential across the membrane causes oxygen molecules from air on one side of the membrane to pass through the membrane, which forms oxygen-enriched air (OEA) on the low-pressure side of the membrane and ODA on the high-pressure side of the membrane. The requirement for a pressure differential necessitates a source of compressed or pressurized air. Bleed air from an aircraft engine or from an onboard auxiliary power unit can provide a source of compressed air; however, this can reduce available engine power and also must compete with other onboard demands for compressed air, such as the onboard air environmental conditioning system and anti-ice systems. Moreover, certain flight conditions such as during aircraft descent can lead to an increased demand for ODA at precisely the time when engines could be throttled back for fuel savings so that that maintaining sufficient compressed air pressure for meeting the pneumatic demands may come at a significant fuel burn cost. Additionally, there is a trend to reduce or eliminate bleed-air systems in aircraft; for example Boeing's 787 has a no-bleed systems architecture, which utilizes electrical systems to replace most of the pneumatic systems in order to improve fuel efficiency, as well as reduce weight and lifecycle costs. Other aircraft architectures may adopt low-pressure bleed configurations where engine design parameters allow for a bleed flow of compressed air, but at pressures less than the 45 psi air (unless stated otherwise, “psi” as used herein means absolute pressure in pounds per square inch, i.e., psia) that has been typically provided in the past to conventional onboard environmental control systems. A separate compressor or compressors can be used to provide pressurized air to the membrane gas separator, but this undesirably increases aircraft payload, and also represents another onboard device with moving parts that is subject to maintenance issues or device failure.
Alternate technologies have been proposed for aircraft fuel tank inerting, including the use of electrochemical cells or catalytic reactors to produce inerting gas. However, neither of these technologies has yet achieved commercial success, and new approaches for aircraft fuel tank inerting continue to be pursued.